


Requital

by englishable



Series: Hieros Gamos [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-08
Packaged: 2020-04-23 01:20:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19140706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englishable/pseuds/englishable
Summary: It does not seem fair, strictly speaking, that he should get to enjoy himself this way; Sif has spent so long loving him, and the realization of it has instead come to Thor all at once in a rush.She really ought to make him pine a little, if only to keep things even.





	Requital

…

“You really shouldn’t let me do this, you know,” Thor says. “I don’t think it’s entirely fair.”

“To wh –” they bump noses and Sif’s words are flattened into a hum when he kisses her again “—to whom, precisely?”

“You.” The next two kisses are placed like measured caesuras at the corner of her mouth. The breaths keep snagging somewhere inside his chest and a lock of her cool, dark hair flutters when he tries to exhale.  They are in one of the dimly-lit control rooms of Quill's ship, though only because Thor has backed Sif through the sliding door and slapped it shut behind them. Their voices rebound in the close space. “You might at least tell me to stop and wait a minute.”

Sif draws back enough so she can look at him. The kiss he gives her in this interlude lands mostly on her nose and she wrinkles her face at the ticklish texture of his beard. 

“And why should I ask a thing like that?” she says. “You–” he tries for her nose again but catches her on the cheek “—you certainly seem to be enjoying yourself, anyway.”

“Yes, that’s the problem.” Now he does stop, if only to get both arms around her and gather her more tightly against him. He wants to laugh, mostly at himself, except an odd sound gets stuck high in his throat and he swallows it.  “I made you wait more than long enough, didn’t I? I should think I’d deserve the same treatment in kind.”

“I see.” Sif turns her head to fit more comfortably in the crook of his neck. “I’ll admit I appreciate the offer, but your reasoning is a bit backwards.”

“How so, wise logician?”

She is the one who laughs, as things turn out. “Well, to start, I never imagined I was actually waiting for anything.”

“Ah.”  Thor knows he ought to loosen his hold but cannot bring himself to do it yet. “Never?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Her arms are pinned, by the way he holds her, but one hand is still free enough that she can lay it flat over his chest. His pulse is hammering so hard it makes his ribs jump slightly beneath her palm.

“Because I loved you for the sake of loving you,” she says. “That’s why – it was an answer in itself.”

Thor feels rather than sees it when she smiles, her lips pressed as they are to the flushed skin of his neck. That same peculiar sound gets stuck in his throat when he speaks.

"Fair enough." 

And here, unbidden, he thinks of her shield, the one Sif carried all those years while she fought alongside him. He saw this shield so often in his youth that as a man he ceased to look at it, but he can recall every detail:

It was made from oaken heartwood braced with crucible steel. It was small and swift but tireless, covered by the record of perhaps a hundred killing blows that were originally intended for him; the strength of the shield and the strength of Sif’s arm bore them all without complaint.  The knotted pattern along the shield’s edges had no beginning and therefore no end.

In one corner was a metal patch, brazed and welded above the place where the arrow on Vanaheim punched through it, and so Thor also remembers that – though Sif could beat out the dents and oil off the grime and polish away the scratches – the enduring heartwood inside the steel could never properly be mended the same way.

Whatever marks were made upon it were simply left for Sif to carry.

(Thor sometimes wonders what could have happened, what would have happened, if he had been given permission to use the gauntlet.  

He cannot say for sure whether he would have survived it, though of course he had entertained no plans for doing so when he asked.

He cannot say what he would have been feeling, or what he would have been thinking, but there is always the awful, heavy, terrible dread that in the midst of all his other losses and all his other regrets, he might have forgotten to ask for Sif back because he did not even realize she was gone. )

Sif taps his chest.

Thor eases his grip, recollecting himself. She reaches up and touches her finger to a pale, twisted little burn scar that sits just behind his left temple, marking the place where the infinity stone once touched him, and then she runs her hand all the way down through his long hair.

“That didn’t sound completely stupid, did it? You don’t have to cry.”

His throat makes the high, strained sound once more. Thor recognizes it for what it is and feels his face crumple. He is silent a long while, folding her into his arms again, but this time she wriggles her own arms free to hold him as well. Her reach does not quite encircle his waist.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve b –” The solemnity of this is somewhat spoiled when a sob makes him hiccup. “I’ve been a fool.”

“Now, that one, I won’t argue.” She speaks soft against his ear and they rock slowly as they stand there amidst the star-blue lights of the control panels and the quiet thrumming of the engine. “But you’ve been a great many other things, too.”

“It’s a –” he manages to catch his breath and makes another try at laughing. “It’s a rather large part of the charm, though, wouldn’t you say?”

“I won’t argue that, either.” Sif skims a hand up his broad back to tease her fingers next against the nape of his neck, sweeping his hair aside to do it. “But speaking of fools, I don’t believe I ever actually asked you to leave off kissing me.”

“Right.” He wipes his face. “Sorry. Where were we?”

“You may have been planning to tell me something, I think.”

“I – yes. I was.” He blinks several times to clear his vision. If the great, dizzy rush of wanting and needing that sweeps through him now is anything like what she felt, for all those centuries, he has to wonder how she stood it; he does not know that he can stand it another five minutes, though he would come to her on his hands and knees if she asked him in that voice. “I love you.”

“Hmm.” She narrows her eyes and scrunches her face around another suppressed, ticklish smile. “I think you should say it again, just to be sure. I might not have heard you properly.”

“I love you.” But this does not seem sufficient and he reaches back a thousand years further into his memory for something that will answer the purpose. “Ek ann þér.”

“That’s better.” She takes his face in both her hands. “You can keep on saying it, if you like. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

(She never tells him when, properly, since Nebula opens the control room door and discovers them shortly thereafter, so Thor goes on thinking up new ways to say it.

If he is not permitted to pine over her, even a little, it is the least he can do.) 

…

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> (The words Thor says are Old Norse, I believe, and translate as "I love you," though as always I'd welcome any better translations. Thank you for reading!)


End file.
